FRIENDLIER SKIES: After a plunge in traffic...

FRIENDLIER SKIES: After a plunge in traffic last year, Oxnard Airport reports more passengers are flying out since the arrival of a second airline in April. “It’s definitely back up,” Ventura County Airports Administrator Marshall MacKinen said. United Express, which ceased service in early 1992, returned with seven flights, in addition to American Eagle’s six. . . . All flight paths still lead to LAX. United considered adding a flight to San Francisco but found little demand. On the horizon: MacKinen hopes to lure charter flights to Las Vegas.

PIER REVIEW: Business leaders are trying to raise $1 million to maintain the refurbished Ventura Pier when it reopens (B1). After the pier closed in October, anglers found that it wasn’t the only place to fish in the sea. “We’re getting lots of folks from Ventura,” said Bill Morrison, who sells food and bait at the Port Hueneme Fishing Pier. Hueneme is two-thirds the length of Ventura’s 1,958-foot pier, but Pete Lopez of Oxnard said he catches smelt, perch and an occasional halibut there. “I don’t care if I catch anything.”

DRAGNET: Speaking of fishing, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury is tossing out a big net in hopes of catching crooked politicians (B1). Although insisting that “we have a very clean county,” Bradbury has set up a unit to analyze the campaign reports of every elected official in Ventura County. . . . So who will investigate Bradbury’s campaign statements? “I look at them,” said Donald Coleman, the deputy D. A. who oversees corruption cases.

FROZEN CONDORS: With condors dropping out of the sky at an alarming rate, biologists face an unusual problem: What to do with the remains? For now, the three rare birds that have died since October are lying in a freezer in Fillmore. Two will be stuffed--one for exhibit at a Santa Barbara museum, another for a national tour. The third bird, electrocuted by a power line, will be used for research at UCLA. . . . Meanwhile, efforts to lure the remaining wild condors to a safer area have failed (B1).

Nosedive

Passenger departures from Oxnard Airport plunged last year when United Express pulled out. 1986: 11,849 1987: 16,885 1988: 15,664 1989: 27,548 1990: 46,275 1991: 39,047 1992: 22,770 Source: County Department of Airports